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Aran Ward Sell

@aranws.bsky.social
316 followers 517 following 226 posts

Contemporary Irish lit, modernism, weird fic, environmental lit. "Streams of Damaged Consciousness" @syracuseup.bsky.social 2027. Writer & critic. Music: Writhe & Succumb, Prophet Rossi. Cite as Ward Sell, not Sell.

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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Ha! Quite.
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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
en passant, something that fascinates me about the Vonnegut quote is: one of the things he does while out buying an envelope is "see some great looking babes," but the internet cosiness industry has de-hornified this to "great looking babies" in the most commonly circulated version.
A Facebook post by a page called "Classic throwback," with a picture of Kurt Vonnegut looking genial, accompanied by his famous quote (below) about going out to buy an envelope, but with the word "babes" changed to "babies"

The full quote, per Goodreads, is: "(talking about when he tells his wife he’s going out to buy an envelope) Oh, she says well, you’re not a poor man. You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people. And, see some great looking babes. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And, and ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know. The moral of the story is, is we’re here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don’t realize, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals.”"
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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
en passant, something that fascinates me about the Vonnegut quote is: one of the things he does while out buying an envelope is "see some great looking babes," but the internet cosiness industry has de-hornified this to "great looking babies" in the most commonly circulated version.
A Facebook post by a page called "Classic throwback," with a picture of Kurt Vonnegut looking genial, accompanied by his famous quote (below) about going out to buy an envelope, but with the word "babes" changed to "babies"

The full quote, per Goodreads, is: "(talking about when he tells his wife he’s going out to buy an envelope) Oh, she says well, you’re not a poor man. You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people. And, see some great looking babes. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And, and ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know. The moral of the story is, is we’re here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don’t realize, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals.”"
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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
"Automatization eats things, clothes, furniture, your wife, and the fear of war. This thing we call art exists in order to restore the sensation of life, in order to make us feel things, to make a stone stony. The goal of art is to create the sensation of seeing, not merely recognizing, things.
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leon @leyawn.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
ceo of burger king: our burgers have gone rogue again and infected people with e coli
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Tom Roberts @tpgroberts.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
You have to realise that it's unreasonable and implausible to achieve Net Zero, we should instead consider practical ideas, like dimming the sun?
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sean guynes @guynes.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
I also had the pleasure of getting @aranws.bsky.social to write about the novel, its legacy, and its "failures" for LARB.
lareviewofbooks.org
The Kingdom in His Head | Los Angeles Review of Books
Aran Ward Sell reconsiders the legacy and complex overlapping ‘failures’ of Mervyn Peake’s final novel, ‘Titus Alone.’
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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Same (but three-time alumnus and several-times past employee). So sad for former colleagues and today's students that an institution we're all desperate to be proud of is behaving so abysmally.
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Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Genuinely cannot believe this tone from a VC who has just announced that hundreds of jobs are going to be lost
Professor Mathieson said: "We are extremely disappointed that, despite ongoing discussions, the University and College Union has given notification of five weeks' strike action, which will unfairly and deliberately target students' first semester of the academic year.
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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Ghastly. Shame.
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Josh Pizzuto-Pomaco @joshpizpom.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
EXC: 90 programmes in Edinburgh University's College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences are to be closed. The casualties, which include 48 language and literature programmes, will be 'taught out', w/ no admissions after 2027. @heraldscotland.bsky.social www.heraldscotland.com/news/2655839...
heraldscotland.com
Ninety programmes to close at leading university as savings plan takes shape
According to the document, a total of 90 programmes will be “taught out” over the next several years, including 48 in the School of Language.
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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
For easy viewing, as the link hasn't loaded a preview image:
The sales page for the upcoming Syracuse University Press book, "Streams of Damaged Consciousness: The Postcrash Irish Novel" by Aran Ward Sell
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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Oh, this is very affirming to see: my monograph has a webpage! press.syr.edu/supressbooks... $110 apparently. You should probably all go and preorder it.
press.syr.edu
Streams of Damaged Consciousness – Syracuse University Press
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EdinburghMinute.com @edinburghminute.com · 10/09/2026
Devastating news. Sending solidarity to the team at The Skinny. Every print edition of every newspaper and magazine is a huge effort, so 20 years is an achievement to be proud of. But this is a huge loss for independent journalism in Scotland. Hopefully the team find work soon.
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Ancillary Review of Books @ancillaryreviewofbooks.org · 09/09/2026
Tales from the Interregnum: @aranws.bsky.social reviews MONSTER CAPITAL: TALES OF MODERN UNEASE, edited by Ra Page & David Sue (@commapress.bsky.social)
ancillaryreviewofbooks.org
Tales from the Interregnum: Review of Monster Capital
Aran Ward Sell Under Review:Monster Capital: Tales of Modern Unease. Edited by Ra Page & David Sue. Comma Press, June 2026. The late Mark Fisher is increasingly revered as a modern prophet. He …
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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
A joy to make my Ancillary Review debut reviewing this spooky, Fishery little number!
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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Challenge accepted.
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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Congratulations, @danhartland.bsky.social !
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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Re full dimensions, could be fun to put something pulpy like George R R Martin's "The House of the Worm" alongside, say, Leonora Carrington's surrealist bent. Or to throw in non-prose fiction: an episode of True Detective, Twin Peaks, Welcome to Night Vale.
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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Thanks for tagging! I see you have Great God Pan recommended in the other thread. I'd be tempted to add something like The Yellow Wallpaper that is usually parsed as Literary rather than Genre, to probe the contingency of that divide (is Weird a set of tropes or an affect, etc)
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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Packing hack: instead of 15 books, just bring You Dreamed of Empires and re-read it 14 times. It's that good. (As I also expressed here: strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/... )
strangehorizons.com
You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue, translated by Natasha Wimmer
This is a novel that seethes with impossible visions, willful anachronisms, and ultimately invented events that contradict historical fact.
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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
I just read Oisín Fagan's Eden's Shore and strongly recommend it! I'm excited for Said the Dead but haven't read it yet. Not sure about collections -- I'll reply again if anything occurs to me.
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Anakana Schofield @anakanaschofield.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
I’m in the paper today hailing the workers and calling the developers monstrous. My work is done here. I can live out my final naps in a cat basket vancouversun.com/entertainmen...
vancouversun.com
Library of Brothel brings readers into a surreal wonderfully analog world of colourful characters
Human connection and the right to meaningful work frames new Anakana Schofield novel.
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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
...it comes in pints?
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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
Very excellent selection! I've been evangelising about Earlie King since it came out
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sean guynes @guynes.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
And, as a bonus, I had the opportunity to commission @aranws.bsky.social's peice on the "failures" and legacy of Titus Alone, which is just as fascinating a novel as the other two:
lareviewofbooks.org
The Kingdom in His Head | Los Angeles Review of Books
Aran Ward Sell reconsiders the legacy and complex overlapping ‘failures’ of Mervyn Peake’s final novel, ‘Titus Alone.’
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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
The absolute joy of Speakeing is that you get to use his illustrations on the Powerpoint slides, immediately rendering them the best Powerpoint slides I will ever make.
A gorgeously eerie grey-and-white sketch of a dead mouse, by the author and illustrator Mervyn Peake.
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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
(S)peakeing about Peake again today, this time at MSA/BAMS Loughborough. Make it along if you can! If you can't it's basically this essay but out loud! @modernistudies.bsky.social @moderniststudies.bsky.social lareviewofbooks.org/article/titu...
lareviewofbooks.org
The Kingdom in His Head | Los Angeles Review of Books
Aran Ward Sell reconsiders the legacy and complex overlapping ‘failures’ of Mervyn Peake’s final novel, ‘Titus Alone.’
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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
Moved to the USA in January '24. Leaving the USA this week. Hell of a ride. reasonstoremain.co.uk/2026/06/16/t...
reasonstoremain.co.uk
The General II
I’m sitting in a coffee shop called The General, in South Bend, Indiana. It’s June 2026. It’s over two years since I wrote this. I no longer live up the hill, in an apartment called The Hill.…
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Ancillary Review of Books @ancillaryreviewofbooks.org · 05/05/2026
Fantastic news! With a week left to go, we've hit our first stretch goal for ARB's fundraiser! Thank you to everyone who's chipped in and/or helped spread the word; let's see how far we can get in our final week! Rewards and more still available:
kickstarter.com
Ancillary Review of Books: Year 7!
Questioning power, imagining possibility: ARB provides thoughtful criticism of speculative fiction. Help us pay our writers and staff!
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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
Meanwhile the US coverage has ...Tom Hiddleston being bullied into teaching Jamie Carragher how to moonwalk. Tbf to Hiddleston he clearly thinks it's fucking ridiculous and wants to talk about the football.
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Arsenal FC @arsenalfc.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FINALISTS ❤️
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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
...you inserted yourself into this comment thread, though. Do you often attend meetings just to put your hand up and say you shouldn't have to be there?
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Met (C) 🏆 @afcmet.bsky.social · 25/04/2026
I just don’t know how you in this instance get your pass intercepted
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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 25/04/2026
He's our most infuriating player since Zinchenko On A Bad Day. (Sterling doesn't count, he just made me feel sad)
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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 25/04/2026
At this stage of the season...that's fine? He's played his way out of the team, he doesn't need his feelings saved.
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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 25/04/2026
Hate the Havertz injury so much, but I wish we'd put Trossard or Jesus on instead of Gyökeres. Someone who can maintain Kai's role in the passing patterns with Eze and Ødegaard.
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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
Recently read one of yours for the first time and it is🤌🤌🤌
"White Cat, Black Dog" by Kelly Link, propped on a crowded bookshelf.
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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
I'd put him alongside or above Saliba, Rice and Ode as a level-raiser, and more immediate than any of those. Sadly in his case the raise was temporary rather than sustained.
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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
Broadly agree, though I'd posit Jesus was a great signing whose knee unfortunately then imploded.
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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
Find it remarkable how unlikely my 2199 clones are to vote Green, a party of government in Scotland as recently as 2024.
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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
Polling really is just name recognition eh. Justice for Allosaurus. I think -- and would be genuinely fascinated to know -- that Diplodocus would score significantly higher in the UK, due to the former star exhibit of the London Natural History Museum.
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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
Swift recovery!
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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
Kai in the 10 plays as a striker, which weakens the midfield build up, but also frees Gyök up to run into the left channel rather than just stand on a centre half. Would be nice if there was a way to have both!
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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
@poorlydrawnarsenal.com activate
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sean guynes @guynes.bsky.social · 05/04/2026
"You did it! You crazy son of a bitch, you did it!" An essay in which I write about James Gurney's illustrated utopian adventure fiction novel DINOTOPIA: A LAND APART FROM TIME and tell you why it's pretty fucking awesome. Plus, images of lots of Gurney's art, including his sff covers from the 80s!
seanguynes.com
Reading “Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time” by James Gurney (Dinotopia 1)
James Gurney’s Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time (1992) is an incredible illustrated utopian novel of an adventurer’s arrival and education in a land where dinosaurs and humans live sid…
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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
LOVE this. As a Dinosaur Child of the era, I think Dinotopia baffled me by being *so* beautifully painted. It seemed to exist a bit too much for something so richly wondrous.
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Devin Nunes' Alt-Mom @nunesalt.bsky.social · 28/03/2026
We must act before the sharks become venture capitalists. www.wdef.com/cocaine-caff...
wdef.com
Cocaine, caffeine and painkillers consumed by sharks in Bahamas, study finds - WDEF
Sharks in the Bahamas are consuming substances including caffeine, painkillers and even cocaine, according to a new study by marine scientists who say it could potentially impact the animals' health a...
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Aran Ward Sell @aranws.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
The phrase "stick a fork in me, I'm done" expresses the ethos of sceptical inquiry: the listener is not invited to believe the speaker's central assertion, but to immediately test it for themselves.
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Universities Committee for Scottish Literature @studyscotlit.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
Exciting ScotLit opportunity for someone!
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